You have to go down to him,” I said, and there was a determination in my voice that surprised even me. Jacob was already pulling the rope out of his backpack, his movements precise and fast, like those of a man who had been preparing for this very moment for decades. Sam found a solid rock for anchoring, he felt the edges with his fingertips to make sure it wouldn’t move.

In less than three minutes, we had organized the descent. I was the lightest, so I would be the one who would go down. I tied the rope to my harness, checked the knots twice, and then tightened the chest strap. Sam and Jacob held the other end, their feet propped up against rocks, their bodies leaning back to distribute the weight.

I looked down. The wind was so strong that the rope swayed from side to side like a living thing. The edge of the cliff was sharp, stones crumbling under my feet and disappearing into the darkness. I stopped for a second, took a deep breath, and that’s when I felt something touch my ankle. It was the dog. He was standing right next to me, his head bowed, his muzzle against me. As if he were saying: “I’m here. You’re not alone. »

I went downstairs. The first five meters were the most difficult. The rock was slippery, my fingers felt almost nothing because of the cold inside my gloves. At one point, I lost my footing, the rope swayed, and I hit my knee against the wall.

The pain was sharp, so sharp that lightning exploded in front of my eyes, but I tightened the rope with all my might. I couldn’t let go. I didn’t have the right. Jacob’s voice came from above: “You can do it, Noah. We have you. The dog, from above, was looking at me. I could see his head on the edge of the cliff, his ears pressed back by the wind, his eyes wide open, and that look gave me more strength than any rope.

For the last five metres, I just let the rope slip through my hands. Stones were falling around me, I could hear their sound as I hit the rocks below. When my feet hit the ground, I didn’t wait to catch my breath.

I ran to this man. He was breathing. Weakly, in fits and starts, but he was breathing. His face was pale, almost gray, his forehead bore a wound that was still bleeding, but the blood was already beginning to clot. Her lips had turned blue from the cold. I turned his head to the side, I cleaned his mouth of dust and small stones with my fingers, I pressed my ear against his chest. His heart was beating. Weakly, irregularly, but he was beating.

Jacob cried out from above, “How is he?”

“He’s alive,” I yelled back, and as I said that word, I felt a huge weight leave my shoulders. “But it must be evacuated quickly. He is hypothermic. I slipped my jacket under him, wrapped him in it, and then tied the rope around his waist. Two knots. Tight. But not too much, so as not to compress his chest. Then I became attached to him, so that we became one.

At the top, Sam and Jacob started shooting. With one hand I held his head, with the other I grabbed the wall to prevent us from cognizing. With each movement, I felt like my hands were going to give out. My muscles were shaking with fatigue and cold. But the boys were pulling, pulling, I could hear their breathing from above, I could hear them cheering for each other and me. And we were going up slowly, very slowly, meter by meter.

When I finally pulled him out of the void, when I passed the edge of the cliff, I fell to the ground. I fell next to him, and my body no longer obeyed me. My hands were shaking so hard that I couldn’t squeeze them. The dog approached immediately. First, he began to lick the man’s face, long, patient licks, as if trying to bring him back to life. Then he licked my hand, then my cheek. His tongue was warm, and that little warmth reminded me that we were still alive.

Jacob knelt down next to us, checked the pulse, and then lifted the man’s eyelids. “He’s alive. But a decision must be made. The direct descent is the shortest route, about two hours, but it is the most difficult. The roundabout route is longer, four hours, with gentler slopes. I looked at the dog. He sat near the man’s head, his body curled up, his eyes riveted on his face. His ribs showed under his coat. He had waited so long. He had come so far. He had run, he had fallen, he had risen again, he had run again, until he found us. He had not abandoned his companion. And I understood that neither did we.

“We’re going down the direct way,” I said, and there was no shadow of a doubt in my voice. “I wear it. You cover me from above and from the sides. The dog comes with us. Sam opened his mouth to object, but Jacob looked at him, and that look said it all. “She’s right. We don’t have time. »

We lifted the man. It was heavy, maybe eighty kilos, but I didn’t feel the weight. I could only feel his breathing, weak but present, and that was enough for me. And the dog, which was walking right next to me, sometimes looked up at me, sometimes licked the hand of the man hanging over my shoulder, sometimes gave a little bark, as if he were saying, “We’re coming soon, we’re coming soon.”

The descent lasted three hours and forty-three minutes. We lost the way several times, the darkness was starting to fall, and without the dog, we would probably have lost our way. But Marley — that’s what I’d already called him in my head — would stop at intersections, sniff the ground long, carefully, and then choose the right direction. He was never wrong. This tired little creature who never gave up led us to life.

Down there, where the wind had finally stopped and the air was milder, we met the rescue team. They had been looking for this man for six hours. His name was Thomas. He had fallen off the cliff in the morning, around nine o’clock. The dog, Marley, was his dog. He had not left it. He had gone to get help. He had gone in the wind and the cold, without food, without water, guided only by his heart.

When the doctors picked up Thomas, when they took him in the helicopter with the flashing lights, Marley sat on the floor, looked at me, then looked at Jacob, then at Sam. And then he did something I’ll never forget. He came to us, sat down next to us, and laid his head on Sam’s lap. Sam, who had been the most reluctant to follow the dog, the one who had said “we don’t have time”, knelt down, hugged the dog and started crying. He was crying like I’d never seen him cry before.

“I was going to say we couldn’t go,” he whispered, his fingers buried in Marley’s fur. “I was going to say that we didn’t have time. I almost let him die up there. »

We remained silent. In the distance, in the mountains, the wind was still howling, but down here the sun had come out from behind the clouds for the last time before it had set, and Marley had closed his eyes in Sam’s arms. His tail wagged weakly once, then another, and I understood that it was the first time he had rested in six hours.

Thomas survived. Three weeks in hospital, with fractured ribs, severe head trauma and two broken fingers, but he survived. The first thing he did when he woke up was to ask where Marley was. He was told that Marley was waiting for him outside, that he hadn’t left the hospital door since we brought him in. He had sat down on the doormat and was waiting. Three weeks.

My name is Noa. I still do mountaineering. But never again will I say that I don’t have time to follow a dog who tries to tell me something. Because this little creature taught me something that no mountain could have taught me: sometimes the most important path is the one shown to you by the one who cannot speak, but whose heart is full of love. And sometimes, in the most difficult moments, there is a dog that does not give up. Who falls but gets back up. Who runs until he finds you. And when he has found you, he leads you exactly where you need to be.